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Transmedia Used to Promote Ridley Scott’s New Film “Prometheus”

20th Century Fox released a video to help promote Ridley Scott’s new film Prometheus. It wasn’t a trailer. It wasn’t one of those awful ‘watch people watch the screening in night vision’ videos. It wasn’t even a behind the scenes clip. It was Peter Weyland, founder of Weyland industries speaking at the TED conference in the year 2023. He delivers an inspiring speech in which he relates the story of Prometheus, who stole fire from the Greek Gods and gave it to humans.

In this 3 minute and 9 second speech there is no mention of Prometheus the film. At the end of the clip we are provided a web address for WeylandIndustries.com. This, my friends is Transmedia and I hope it catches on like…well, like fire.

What is Transmedia?

Transmedia is a way of telling a story through multiple platforms using digital technologies. Transmedia builds on the ideas of Technological Convergance. Basically the idea is that all the mediums that had been traditionally separate (television, radio, print, etc.) are becoming one medium or consumable by one piece of technology.

A great example of this is a smart phone. At first a cell phone’s primary use was to take and receive phone calls. Now cell phones can do that in addition to take video, photo, compose email, transmit documents, surf the web, play music and on and on and on. Transmedia acts in the same way. Instead of a film being just film (or a book adaptation) living in its own environment, it becomes a video game, or a website, or an album.

In the case of Prometheus, a traditional commercial is transformed into a piece of content that supplements the story of the film.

Why is Transmedia Effective?

Ridley Scott and 20th Century Fox aren’t the only ones aware of transmedia, Coca Cola and many others are getting into the mix as well (check out Coke’s Content 2020 videos). What makes transmedia so effective is its emphasis on story and branding versus selling and corporation. The groundswell has been moving businesses in this direction for some time now and the evolution of social media is being realized.

Businesses are just now starting to catch on to tools such as; blogs, twitter, facebook, pinterest, instagram, etc. which changing the way companies communicate their brand.

We are moving away further and further away from traditional media that shouts as loud as it can so that the most people can hear it. We are moving towards most intimate conversations that speak to highly targeted groups. Transmedia will spark the conversation while social media outlets and the like facilitate it.